


Whispers of the Gods

by Manickmondays



Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Celtic Mythology & Folklore, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-09-16 13:48:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16955211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Manickmondays/pseuds/Manickmondays
Summary: A lonely farmhand hears rumbling voices in his dreams, calling him, beckoning him to more than he ever thought he would be, more than he would have ever thought possible. Godhood calls to him, but it is not as simple as heeding the requests of the voice in his head.He has far to go, much to learn, and bigger battles than he knows to fight before he can take his rightful place.





	Whispers of the Gods

_ Wake up, young god. _

Finn bolted upright in bed, eyes searching frantically in the dark of his small room for the source of the voice. His once airy linen shirt now clung to his back, damp with a cold sweat that trickled down his neck and sent shivers down his spine. The sparse hay in his mattress reflected his chill all too well, and the sound of the fibers breaking as his chest heaved was like a mountain collapsing.

There hadn’t been a dream, and that was the part that terrified Finn the most. Just a voice, cold, draining. Just four words.

_ Wake up, young god. _

Wake up he did, and it didn’t seem he’d get much sleep after, the words fresh on his mind and ears like a brand on a cow. Finn’s body was chilled, a breeze lazily flapping through the curtains, but his heart was hot, like a burning hand was squeezing it. He ran a hand through his short cropped hair and lay back, wishing for sleep to come.

For days after, the voice was silent, and Finn had brushed it off as the last scraps of a bad dream. Odd voices existed all the time in dreams, and they would mean nothing. Sure, dreams could often speak of a future, as it had for many in his small seaside village, but they could also be utter nonsense. Finn decided that since he had a life to attend to, nonsense was the best choice. Talk of the gods didn’t put food on the table for anyone except the ones who tended to their temples, and Finn was not one of those. He couldn’t waste time thinking of the gods when he had his small herd of cattle to look after. They were hard enough work without bad dreams and sleepless nights. 

Finn had risen with the sun, as he always did, though the sun was a shy friend around his home. The morning saw mist rising off the hills, shimmering clouds of silver rising to the sky, and the dew stuck to Finn’s worn boots as he went to check on his herd. He counted each head, their bright, soft eyes blinking up at him as they brayed softly for their food. Finn waded through them, accounting for each one as they surged around him. All but one, who brayed miserably, looking down at the ground, and then back at him a few times. 

The stench of death hit him before his eyes could even see what lay before him. One of his younger steers lay on the ground, very clearly dead and already buzzing with flies. The only clue as to what might have killed the poor thing was the blackest mud Finn had ever seen, seeming to throb around the steer’s neck like it was alive. Finn’s head throbbed and he dropped to his knees as he received a simple command, deep and low in his brain.

_ Climb. _

Finn awoke at midday, his cattle grouped around him and curiously snuffling at his clothes. His head ached as if someone had beat him upside the head with a stone, and when he sat up his vision swam deliriously. A rather large cow face pushed into his own, and he gently nudged the creature away as it snorted indignantly. The sun had burned through the clouds ever so slightly, and he was sticky with sweat. 

The very same voice that had commanded him to wake not a week ago had spoken again, and in his waking hours. He doubted his wakefulness for a bit, but no dream had ever felt so vivid as this one, nor as logical. So it must be real. But real did not determine whether it was something to be purged from his body at the temple, or for its direction to be followed. 

Finn sat there in the mud of the pen, weighing his options. Healing, or climb. He wasn’t even entirely sure what the voice was telling him to climb, and he hadn’t let his cattle out to graze for a few hours. So he figured it wouldn’t harm anything if he let the cows out and went down into town. He’d be quick. 

Quick was right, seeing as he was nearly dismissed at the gate when he could get a word in edgewise with the priests, it seemed they dismissed him as being lonely on his little farm, and that all he needed was a nice lass around the house to keep him company. There were too many reasons to count that the suggestion aggravated him, not least of all the choice of companion. Finn realized quickly why it was he spent so much time surrounded by his gentle eyed cattle and made his way back up to them, back to his little cottage, back  _ home _ . He had almost reached the fence when the voice picked up, sending him to his knees as his vision went white.

**_Climb._ **

The voice was indignant now, deeper, louder, more demanding. Finn picked himself up off the ground, still filthy from his last collapse and looked up, up to the tallest point in his little town. The summit was still hazy from the morning’s dew, even though it was well past noon. It brushed with the lowest of the clouds, sparse whisps, like the heavens had whispered them into existence. He rubbed the blinding white from his eyes, grumbling his assent under his breath as he made his way back up to his farm. The voice seemed like it might not be the type to ask three times, and he made his decision then and there to make the climb up the mountain.

After changing out of his muddied clothes, grabbing a waterskin and a light cloak, Finn set out to the top of the mountain. It’s a gentle enough trek, but it still took the better part of the rest of his day, and he reached the summit just as the sun starts to dip low in the sky, streaking orange and purple across the sky as night began to consume the day. There’s been no words invading his brain all day; the silence is deafening. Finn swept his cloak out of the way and sat down on a flattish rock, watching as the sun cast slivers of precious gold across the waves of the bay. The night swept across the sky with a swiftness Finn had never seen, bringing with it the chill of the evening.

Finn began to pace in an effort to keep himself warm, baffled at the silence in his head after the anger and indignation of earlier. He opened his mouth to question this  venture— why climb if not to perform some task?— but the rumbling voice in his head spoke before he could.

_ Listen. Watch. Soon you will be as I. Soon I will be as you. _

Finn managed to stay standing through it, but his head throbbed like the steady hack of an axe on wood, vision swimming.

That was meaningless! Utter nonsense! Finn growled furiously, kicking a stone off the cliff and letting it clatter down the face and down into the ocean beating against the rocks. All this effort, for absolutely nothing but some nonsense and a headache. The night settled fully, and Finn sat down with a huff. Listen to what, watch what?

_ Young god. _

Finn winced as the throbbing subsided quicker, and he glared at nothing in particular as if the voice might begin to take shape there in front of him.

_ You know my name, young god. Speak it. _

He knew nothing of the sort. Finn figured his encroaching madness had no name, not one that he could speak anyways. The throbbing in his head either hurt less or had become so central to his being right now that he had just utterly blocked it out.

_ Who else would command you to look upon his greatest creation, boy? _

Finn’s brow furrowed, and a word sprung onto the tip of his tongue, like he had known it his whole life, been prepared to speak it his whole life. He raised his eyes to the sky as a single word found its way out of his lips.

“Bálor.”

Nothing miraculous happened as he spoke the word, just the all too familiar voice in his head letting out a deep, throaty laugh. If it was mocking him, Finn would just fling himself off this damned cliff. Just like his own head to mock him, if it were truly madness.

_ In a way. Know you my name, boy?  _

Finn looked down a bit, brow furrowed. The name sounded familiar, but it came to him in some kind of strike of—  _ of course _ — divine inspiration. With the realization that the voice in his head was a god, memories of his mother telling tales to him filled his head. But.. they begin to take new forms, and Finn sinks back to the stone as the stars in front of him dip and swirl, as if shaped by a hand to form glistening figures. The stories told to him when he was just a little scrap of a boy were illustrated in the stars above him. 

The stars weaved into simple little shapes, almost abstract humans. Each of them in turn picked up a glittering star, brighter than any Finn had ever seen. He knew what this was, the first humans becoming gods, finding the mantles that gave them their power. Stars swirled into mountains rising and falling, wars played out in a twinkling tableau, and the figures that had become gods watched it all. Eventually they stepped down to the earth and bestowed the glittering mantles onto other humans, and that too Finn knew well. The gods are not static, every few thousand years they retire and give new humans their powers, living out the rest of their lives in a moderate amount of peace. The voice rumbled once more in Finn’s head, the dull ache subsiding.

_ The cycle is beginning again, young god.  _

The stars stopped dancing in the sky, returning to their places and dimming slightly. He had forgotten the legends he had been told in the daily slog of his life; the repetition, the early mornings, the isolation, all of it had made him forget the stories he once held so dear as a boy. If only he could tell that little lad he’d have a god talking in his brain someday. Or, perhaps, madness calling itself a god, but for now he couldn’t tell. For now he was a boy again, wide eyed and believing in the magic of the world. 

_ You are next, boy. _

Finn’s lip twitched in confusion, brow furrowed. The chill of the night had fully seeped into his bones, but he wasn’t noticing it much. 

“Next?”

_ You are next. The mantle of Bálor will rest upon your head soon.  _

It was like Finn could feel the ground itself tumble to dust under him, accepting the truth that his brain could not process from the beginning. He was going to be a god. His parents had never encouraged him too much; they knew his beginnings were humble, as his end was likely to be. For the time being, that had been more than enough for him. He always ate, he slept comfortably enough, his roof hadn’t leaked for a few springs. 

_ But first, boy, you must prove yourself. Not all are fit to be gods. _

Finn’s shoulders slumped, knowing full well that he was not fit to be a god, and that he would fail these trials as soon as he would embark upon them. The earth-shattering revelation of just a few moments before crumbled before him like a rotting door, opportunity gone. If it was something he could have grown into, perhaps he could have succeeded, but not with these conditions.

_ There is something you must fetch, something you must kill, and something you must do. When these three tasks are completed, the power of the mantle is yours. _

“When do I begin?”

The voice—  _ Bálor, _ Finn had to remind himself— grunted a bit and exhaled.

_ When I call you next. _

Bálor went silent, and the drumbeats in his head finally subsided to the last strains of their tune. All that was left of the encounter was an exhausted Finn, left alone at the top of the mountain. He slowly made his way down the mount, more than ready to collapse into his bed and wake up to feed the cows. The morning came too violently, the sun intruding on his dark, dreamless sleep that he was treasuring. Peace seemed to be rare, and seeing as the gods would call on him soon, he wanted to take each scrap of it before he would be expected to turn the day into night, to occupy the spaces the god of light carved out for him. The life of a god was bound to be a horrifically busy one, and busy suited him fine enough, but all he ever heard about the gods was that they would fight amongst themselves. Was he the first to be called to godhood? He can’t remember the crops going wild, or the seas being more turbulent than before. His family had old stories of the gods last rebirth, where the Daghdha made the fields overflow with crops, or Lugh left the poets tongue-tied for weeks. It was usually a rough go of it for the new gods, a year or two of chaos before they settled into the cycle of things.

Would he fare the same? Would shadows slither out, swallow things whole, like that cow? Speaking of his cattle, they brayed softly at him as he finally arrived home, the blanket of stars already more comfortable to him. He sat outside on the stump where he chopped firewood, watching the tapestry of the sky unfold in front of him, wondering if Bálor was watching him right now, seeing if he was fit to be a god. Well, Bálor would have to content himself with watching Finn pass out cold till the sunrise. Oh, and caring for the cows. Bálor would have to get used to that too. Even when you’re destined to be a god, life goes on.

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to chapter one!! I've got a chapter two all ready to go, and am working on chapter three. I did just move house, so I'll be able to pick and poke at it a bit in the coming weeks. Next chapter is the first of Finn's tasks to becoming a god, and Bálor gets a bit more snippy.
> 
> Talk to me on [Tumblr](http://klyntarollins.tumblr.com/), or in the event of it's horrific collapse, [Twitter](https://twitter.com/nerdofgoodness)!


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